As if learning the craft of writing a novel isn’t difficult enough, after it’s finished you’ll need to edit it. If you’re going to be traditionally published, you’ll probably work with an editing staff to make your work marketable.

But before it gets to that point, you have to get it past the slush pile – that means doing a lot of self-editing first.

Of course, you may choose to go the indie author route and self-publish. No need to rise out of a slush pile, just a need to catch a reader’s eye out there in the big world. Sounds pretty simple.

But before you catch a reader’s eye (and you want to make a good impression, right?), you need to have a great story – that means doing a lot of self-editing and perhaps hiring a professional as well.

No matter what you do, if you want to be read and have those readers give you great reviews, spread the word and buy your other books, you have to face the red pen. You mustedit your manuscript.

Thankfully there are many resources available to help from blogs to books to videos. Here are 11 resources that will make editing just a little easier on you.

Surprise! Here are a few bonus articles I’ve written myself (just in case you need a little more help ;)):

Paid and Free Editing Software For Manuscripts — the best editors are human, but they can be costly. Cut those costs by using software to find your mistakes beforesending it to an editor. I’ve listed several, including a quick review, here.

Sandwich Critiquing — this is perhaps my favorite post, giving you a helpful technique to use when you are asked to critique someone else’s not-so-perfect manuscript.

The Art of Critiquing — receiving criticism is difficult, especially when the person giving it doesn’t give you helpful details you can actually use to improve your work. This post will get you thinking of specifics to address when giving criticism to someone else.

Editing is unavoidable and can be painful, but it doesn’t need to be impossible. These are only a few of the resources I’ve found. What about you? What resources and tips have you picked up as you’ve gone through the editing process?

[…] Let’s be honest — one of the biggest challenges for people when writing isn’t the actual writing. It’s editing. So much so that some newbie writers think editing is something done by someone else. But long before it gets to that “editor” at Publisher Inc., you have to do your own editing. Virginia Ripple is a writer, and she has a website called “Writer on a Shoestring Budget”. Catchy. And one of the big writing tip websites leveraged a reprint of an earlier version of a post about editing, but her main website has an updated version (13 Resources to Make Editing Your Novel Easier). […]